


no wishing on stars

by Zebooboo



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Casual Murders and Not So Casual Murders, Character Study, Consensual Violence, Existential Crisis, Fear of Discovery, I have read a datamined lore tab I am not kidding about the spoilers, In The Bedroom, M/M, Over feelings, Paranoid Character, Spoilers, and more - Freeform, emotionally constipated, will probably not be canon compliant soon, yup we're out of canon territory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:48:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23929447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zebooboo/pseuds/Zebooboo
Summary: "You've fought this fight a long time. We can plot a course around the Warsat network. We'd never have to touch a single planet with a Warmind presence. Any of them.""We've gotten very good at hiding.""Yes.""You would leave the Iron Lords to fend for themselves?""Would you?"[written pre-The Lie quest]Korean TranslationbyLucadris
Relationships: Felwinter/Shaxx (Destiny), Felwinter/Timur (Destiny)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 64





	no wishing on stars

**Author's Note:**

> IMPORTANT - POSSIBLE SPOILERS EVERYWHERE. It has been tagged, I have added a note here. Read at your own risk.
> 
> And so....this took a good month to write, between VoG Week and other stuff, I cried and bled to finish it and I very much expect half of this to get retconned during the season x)
> 
> Regardless of whether this fic will remain canon-compliant matters little, I love Felwinter and now I give this to you all, enjoy! Much thanks to Nicole for checking my disaster scribblings over!! <3
> 
> 26/5/2020 edit - no longer canon compliant!! *cheers* this is officially a minor AU :D  
> 12/6/2020 edit - LUCADRIS HAS BEEN AWESOME ENOUGH TO TRANSLATE THIS FIC INTO KOREAN :DDDDD The link is in the summary and down in the comments!

**_"Listen to me very carefully. They're coming for you. They'll ask you for a name. Your name is Felwinter."_ **

**_"I don't think that's my name."_ **

**_"No. Say it anyway."_ **

\---

They did come for him. He could hardly stand and walk and run on his own but he _made_ it. They noticed too late that he was already on the run, already hiding his tracks. The drone had managed to whisk him away, whispering and hissing instructions.

And so he ran. And he hid. And he tried to talk when he found a village remote enough to hide in for a couple of days. The people were wary and distrustful and he could relate. He didn’t trust anybody either.  
  
But things happened when he talked, they had impact and changed things. He could _lie_ and change things. The drone agreed with him, but told him not to lie too much, he'll get exposed eventually. He would be more careful with what he said. Clever little drone. 

She didn't like being called a drone and so far? She is the only one trying to help him.

\---

**_"What the hell are you?"_ **

**_"You don't trust me."_ **

**_"No."_ **

**_"You will."_ **

**_"You're a very presumptuous little drone. What makes you think that?"_ **

\---

The people call him Felwinter, simply because he said so, and it feels novel. His dron- _Ghost,_ looks wryly at him, but doesn't stop him. Words come out of his mouth and they seem to have impact and it remains so damned _novel_. 

So he tries something new. He kills a man during his first week alive, just to see what would happen, still squatting in that little village. The man lays there, growing cold and stiff and his Ghost explains death to him as people run away, some come back out of their huts with weapons. Saws and torches and a rifle in one woman's trembling hands. 

They don't matter. He leaves when they ask, his curiosity sated for now. And so he keeps moving, no reason to stay in one place. Nothing of interest in this place, maybe if he finds something interesting, something useful… 

\---

**_"Why can't I remember my name? I always remember my name. Something's wrong. Was I damaged in Crypt processing?"_ **

**_"I don't know anything about the Deep Stone Crypt. Before my time."_ **

\---

He dies the first time he meets another like him. Head blown off by high caliber. His Ghost hides as the other Risen searches his body. Stays low as she watches the Risen walk away and then out of sight, didn't even suspect that Felwinter was also a Risen and not a wanderer, too far out of his way. 

She waits until nightfall to come out of hiding, in case the other came around or made camp nearby, but they’d long left. There's images in his head when she brings him back. 

Blood and death and warsats and more corpses than he can count and a rising monolith, splitting the sky in two and a dark expanse enveloping everything. Himself, standing among them, everywhere and nowhere at all. He gasps for breath to a sky dotted with galaxies.

He asks her about the Crypt again. About _himself._ But she only tells him what she knows, and there is no reassurance in any of it. He is Felwinter and they are coming after him. _(Because he is not only that.)_

There's nothing more to be learned like this. No way to ever get away from this. They need information, a direction to start digging and _time._

But to get _time_ they need protection. He can't trust anyone so he has to protect them. And to do that he needs advantages. Distance, weapons, Light, position, power, deception. 

Any of it. All of it. 

\---

**_"No one else will help you. It's kill or die out there."_ **

\---

He already has Light and at least some power. So he finds position. A peak, already occupied. And the ragged band of Risen camping there were expecting attacks, cornered by assaults from the Fallen. 

But they never notice him making the rounds, killing Fallen crews, scavenging weapons in the night. He gets weapons, crude and blunt as they might be. 

They do notice him when he starts picking them off one by one. It breeds paranoia, fear of the dark when he slips in and cuts their throats, stealing their Ghosts away. He kills them too when they don't give up any information nor do they acquiesce to leaving.

It takes some time, a couple of weeks of careful planning and more careful sneaking but he kills them all. He is unbothered by their blood on his hands. His Ghost watches him carefully and he wonders if she regrets bringing him back from the dead.

She asks him one night, after he’d cleared the hold of the bodies, patched some holes in the roof and he could finally safely sleep, “Do you feel bad for ending them?”

He cocks his head, tries to scrounge up whatever empathy and regret he thinks he should have felt back in that village, standing over the first man he ever killed, while the residents had pointed weapons at his head. He did not find much.

“I gave them a way out. They did not take it.” Her parts rotate thoughtfully.  
  
“Will you kill everyone that does not bend the neck to you?” His eyes dart to her, then back at the fire.  
  
“...I’d rather not.”

He is not a heedless murderer. Nothing good or useful about it.

\---

**_"We must advertise our successes. The Warlords know the power of reputation."_ **

\---

He has Light, power, weapons, position. Now they need distance and deception. He needs to build up some kind of reputation for that. To do that he needs to do more than try and _speak sense_ .  
  
So he _does_. He starts patrolling the fort, the surrounding area and very little survives him the next few months. He doles out mercy where he can to the Lightbearers, but they do not make it easy for him. He guides the ghostless away, trades for provisions and sends them away from the reach of the Fallen, until the edge of what is slowly becoming his territory. 

He builds his distance, piece by piece. There were some instances that he and his Ghost feel like sitting ducks, feel the creeping, searching fingers slip too close for comfort. They go patrolling then, leave during the night, make the rounds, root out Fallen camps, search in old ruins for something, anything.  
  
Sometimes it feels like he’s learning very little about what he should be searching for ( _A way_ **_out._ ** _Away, as far as they can go that_ **_nothing_ ** _can get to them. It eats him alive at nights, during the days.)_ Instead he is playing house. His Ghost sternly reminds him that rushing headlong will only get him killed. Or worse.

He’s coming to appreciate her more and more. Trust her.  
  
He feels affronted that she ended up being right, back then when she pulled him out of the abyss.

\---

**_“Have you ever wondered what it is that calls to you in that void of memory, where the edge of the past infects your present?”_ **

\---

By the time he gets the first real break, people have already started calling him ‘Lord’ Felwinter. ‘Warlord’ Felwinter. He feels neither like a warmonger nor like the lord of anything.

If nothing else, he’s spent more time away from his keep than in it, so he’s not the lord of even his own keep.

Instead he is elbow deep in the guts of a forgotten terminal in the Fallen infested edge of the Old Russia Cosmodrome, attempting to fix it enough so his Ghost can access it successfully. He might have felt more compelled to work on it if she hadn’t been hovering over his shoulder, shooting comments all the time rather than keeping watch like she said she would have.

“No, Felwinter you don’t want to cross those wi-STOP THAT, you’re going to fry yourself and then where would we be. Just use the diagram I made, you’re not an electrician. Ow! Felw _inter_ -”  
  
He grabs and shoves her under his robes, her muffled little voice under the double layers of armor and actual clothes. He feels her wiggle in the pocket, complaining the entire time, but at least it’s more quiet.

He even hums a little as he finishes up the repairs and the terminal sparks to life. He lets the Ghost spring out and she narrows her optic at him, shaking out her shell before accessing the databases.

It amuses him, but lets her work, bracing his shotgun and taking up position at the entrance. The corridors are empty and silent, not even the distant chittering of the Fallen reaching this part of the complex.

A whirr and she’s flying over to him, nodding and disappearing in a flicker of sparkles. They will look over the downloaded information when they return to the peak.

\---

**_“Do you even ponder the before? Or that number etched into your ‘flesh’?”_ **

\---

But he got careless. A Fallen crew had been waiting for him, had seen him searching the place, had made sure he’d been complacent and distracted before they got the jump on him.

They thought he would’ve found a way to get further inside, maybe unlock a cache of supplies, food, weapons, clothing, _anything._ When they saw there was nothing they tore into him. _(He’d make for some good replacement parts…)_  
  
He wheezes, chest torn open and fluids making rivulets in the snow around him, surrounded by dead bodies. Bent and broken and half devoured by the Void still licking his fingers.  
  
A connection low in his ribs sparks and he lets out a gurgled scream at the mass of feedback shooting unfiltered through his brain. His sight flickers and resets and there’s a spot of light jumping back and forth.  
  
He belatedly realises it’s his Ghost, frantically trying to fix him, they have no cover, they have to move, he’s gonna _die_ and she has not had to resurrect him in over five years and she’s not about to lose the streak _now._  
  
The pain fades a little, clarity returning like a beaten thing to his mind. He holds as still as he can when every movement jolts something broken in his chest and belly, and the realisation comes easy now that he can spare enough of himself to listen to her.

She’s worried about him.

Felwinter dies with that thought pounding in his head louder than any rattle of gunfire haunting his dreaming _(scheming)_ mind. 

\---

**_“Do you see yourself in your dreams?”_ **

\---

He does.  
  
And every time he wishes he didn’t.  
  
His Ghost projects the data they found and he scours it silently, intently. Sees the trace of a thread he can follow. Deeper into Clovis Bray. The Warminds. Charlemagne. Malahayati. Khanjali.

Rasputin.  
  
That night he holds her small shell in his hands and does not sleep. ( _She deserved better than him.)_

The next morning he asks if she ever wanted a name.

\---

**_"I heard you care very much about right and wrong, and the delivery of justice to those who deserve it."_ **

**_"I can't think of a more human act."_ **

\---

It takes years and years and _years_ and each new thread to follow sends him careening out of his fort, spinning ever outwards with a manic energy under his plating. Rasputin, the Seraph, Warsats, Bunkers, everything else scattered across the system and they wiggle into his brain like maggots, eating him alive. 

The paranoia settles over him like an immovable weight, drives him crazy, leaves him restless at nights. _(He might be under watch and he does not even know it. He might be following a directive and_ ** _he does_** **_not even know it._** _)_

So he moves, he expands the territory, gives himself room. And keeps people away. He kills every arrogant Warlord daring to walk inside his lands. He starts speaking less, lets his guns and his Light show the way to any wandering scavengers and warmongers.  
  
He tries a bit harder for the Lightless ones, even if he doesn’t have it in him. Especially for the children. They deserve a better world. He can’t give it to them, but he can point to a better one. He hears rumours too, about some ‘Iron Wolves’. He doesn’t trust their words. He knows what **words** can do. He knows what _Risen_ and _Warlords_ can do.

He finds more information as time passes, and he contemplates running. _(But he’s already running. There’s nowhere to run to, except so far away the lights of Earth are only a memory.)_  
  
\---

**_"To survive out here, you need eyes in the back of your head."_ **

\---

Felspring twists her back parts and squints at the glitching Ghost in the back of the helmet Felwinter is working on.  
  
“He’s not dead just yet, you know.”  
  
He doesn’t look up from the careful lamination. “It’s no good to me dead.”

She huffs but doesn’t say anything. It’s not sympathy she feels; the Ghost’s ward had almost blown Felwinter’s head off. But a certain amount of pity maybe? She tends to not let feelings get in the way of what needs to be done.  
  
Felwinter hisses and she heals his blistering fingers like it was an afterthought. He nods and keeps working well into the night and she lights up candles and braziers. Makes the room warmer, cozier. It feels very empty all of a sudden, with the shadows drawn long over the walls and the stone floor turning chilly.

She keeps an eye on their sensor network in their territory but flies back to settle in Felwinter’s crossed legs, then at the crook of his elbow, then on his shoulder, finally in the fold of his robe under his chin. 

The shadows grow darker, then slowly turn from looming presences into flickering smudges against the stone as the sun rises. Felspring feels a weight lift off when the first rays of sunlight stream in from the windows.  
  
Threats don’t care for hiding from the light of day. They make themselves known regardless, but…  
  
Felwinter puts aside his tools and picks up the helmet to inspect. Felspring floats up to run a diagnostic on its telecommunication and video feed system.  
  
“Well, you seem to have managed to become an electrician after all.” She says flatly. Felwinter glowers at her. She chirps happily. Felwinter shakes his head and dons the helm, silver horns sweeping backwards and grill-like visor giving him a more intimidating visage than his older, battered helmets.  
  
Felspring likes it. 

A sensor springs to life in the Mothyards.

They turn to each other and nod. Felspring gets her Risen’s shotgun ready before he even gets to the door.

\---

“ ** _Lord Felwinter, I know what you are. And you are no Warmind or even one of its puppets."_ **

\---

Timur is…not what they expected. They went prepared for a fight and the man had only wanted to talk. Felwinter could hardly utter a complete sentence. He felt like a bumbling buffoon. He used to love talking, spinning lies like molten gold, but it hardly ever served any purpose. So he'd just...stopped. 

In the end, that meant little to 'Iron Lord' Timur, he did most of the talking himself. Felwinter was completely blindsided. Recruiting? To an order of people who fought to end the fighting? It sounds ridiculous. And yet… 

Felwinter looks around him and sees nothing but more fighting, more death, more suffering for the many. Timur came to broker peace. With peace come many things. Most of all, information. And in a group of people, selectively informed people, safety.

And he is so _very_ tired. So exhausted of running, of being hunted, being afraid.

He wants to believe in this so badly.

\---

**_“It’s an itch you can’t scratch, isn’t it? Well maybe you can.”_ **

\---

Timur is a force for nature, for lack of better description. It’s a long time since the last interaction worth noting that Felwinter had with another living being and this man is the last thing he expected going out to patrol.

His enthusiasm infects the edges of his psyche, until Felwinter realises that he’s actually leading the man back to his keep. His conviction and beliefs have put him to such ease he feels unsettled after realising it.

His footsteps falter - what is he doing? Timur is ahead, if only a couple steps _(and walking on ahead and ahead)_ , talking about his fellows, spinning grand stories about exploits and victories against Warlords and Fallen alike. The _dreams_ they are trying to build.  
  
Under the Traveler. If they only tried, everything could really _become._

His fingers tighten around his shotgun’s handle. He catches up and steers Timur in the right direction.

\---

**_“But they mean to end the fighting, so I don’t have to sleep with my back to the wall every night, Light in my hand. And that’s not nothing.”_ **

\---

“And you think we can use this? The Warmind or SIVA?”  
  
“Both. They can be better used by people like you.”

“And you.”  
  
“I am not an Iron Lord.”  
  
“But you could be! Imagine! Your territory is expansive, well protected, with your reputation and power to keep it safe. We could do so much good together!”

Felwinter falters, visibly. Felspring tries to bolster him with a hidden nudge at the shoulder.

“I am not like you Iron Lords.”

“None of us were.”  
  
The lines of Timur’s face turn harder, darker but for a moment. “But we cannot let the world keep rolling on the same track it’s on. Humanity suffers. _People_ suffer, while Lightbearers either compound on that same suffering or remain unmoved.”  
  
Felwinter watches carefully, feels the same sentiments flare to life in his chest. He wants to…  
  
To...what? _Do what?_

Timur looks squarely at him.

“Help us?”

“...Let me think about it.”

Timur smiles, wide and open. Smiles like a victory celebration.

\---

**_“You seem far too obsessed with these ‘Warminds’.”_ **

\---

Timur's smile pulls oddly at his chest. The man's laughter like a crackling campfire in his belly. He craves to listen to that voice be joyous. See that face turn to him open and unguarded.

His fingers itch to dig into his throat, crush his spine while looking down at his bloodied, helpless face. Then dig down, down into the man’s chest, snap each rib off like cracking open a juicy crab. Strip Timur’s heart out of his chest with his bare hands.

The Iron Lord’s body is a puppet cut from its strings in Felwinter’s arms and he holds it close, leans down to whisper in its unhearing ear.

He can’t hear what he says, but when he looks up and pins himself with a stare crueler than he thought was possible, Felwinter turns to look away.  
  
The Crypt hovers over him like a jailer he can never outrun.

\---

**_"You've changed."_ **

\---

Radegast doesn’t like him. It’s alright, he’s not with the Iron Lords to be liked.

Felwinter lingers at the edges of the ‘communal’ area the Iron Lords created when they moved in and made his keep the center of their operations. Pretty good deal for them, as far as he can see, he thinks to himself wryly.

He doesn’t begrudge them their little victory.

Saladin and Efrideet nod at him as they pass by, discussing some future operation and he awkwardly returns it. He hears Felspring chuckle and he swats at her. He just needs some time to adjust.  
  
Too many things can go wrong when operating in such a large group. It will take some time to get some contingency plans running. Just in case.

He gets snapped out of his reviere when Timur clasps a hand on his shoulder with a smile.  
  
Felwinter flinches hard. The image of a torn throat, spine hanging loose and broken, chest carved open like the sick rendition of a blooming flower, flashing across his mind. 

Timur just keeps smiling even when Felwinter steps away, putting more than an arm's length of distance between them. 

"Oh, sorry about that. I'm used to others not being too jumpy, but you're not used to us just yet."

He shrugs his shoulders, as if physically brushing the unwanted images away. Timur takes it as a response, nodding. 

"I wanted to thank you. For joining us, giving us free roam in your halls, and all the information you've gathered. It's honestly invaluable." 

There's a lightness in Timur's voice Felwinter has never heard before from another, it tingles in his chest. He nods carefully and hopes the lingering panic tightening in his throat will go away _(dreams aren’t real dreams aren’t real dreams aren’t realdreamsaren’trealdreamsarentreal-)_

Timur shuffles closer as he keeps talking, leaning in and lowering his voice. "Your digging into the Warminds is truly fascinating, and if you're not averse to having a research partner…"

He trails off, mind jumping to different thoughts. The Iron Lord shakes his head with a restrained smile. "Ah, I shouldn't be keeping you. It's a difficult time, adjustments and all that."

Timur steps away, smile stretching to something mischievous.

"Later maybe, _Iron Lord_ Felwinter."

Felwinter watches him leave, frozen in place with a sudden fear replacing the panic thrumming under his plating, across his wiring and feels as if doused in freezing water. 

It has been a while since the last time terror knocked on his door for a visit. Now it seems to have become a permanent resident and he’s not sure if it’s because he’s still being chased or because he doesn't want to kill Timur.  
  
The thought makes his stomach turn for reasons he doesn't allow himself to look at too long.

\---

**_"Don't jump to conclusions.”_ **

\---

It happens during one of their ventures out, searching for remnants of the Clovis Bray facilities. Old Russia gets cold during the winter and they're huddling close together by the fire, half in and half out of their tent with heads bowed over the map of the area and whatever notes they brought together.

Felwinter feels at ease despite trying to keep himself in some kind of distance, some kind of position with clarity and advantage. A way to not get caught off guard. He fails and that more than anything makes the warmth and fear in his chest wage a harsher war on him than his mind ever could.

And on top of that Timur is arguing with him over something trivial and easily double checked if only he’d _let_ Felwinter check and not keep bringing the conversation round and round and _round_ _in_ _circles-_

Timur’s lips are chapped and cold and his metal cheek is sure to be colder than the snow falling but there they are and there Timur keeps them. His eyes are glued to the map stretched out over their knees, mind a barren wasteland even when Timur pulls away with a chuckle. 

"Ha, finally, a way to make the great Lord Felwinter stop thinking so loud!" 

That snaps Felwinter back to reality; where his ass is freezing and will probably just fall off his frame if he stood up and Timur is toying with him like a child with a favoured toy. 

It's not only irritation that makes him grab Timur by the jaw, fingers digging into the stubbled cheeks. That odd warmth in his chest is back, spreading up his neck and down his spine. There's still a trill of danger making his insides tremble and he can feel Felspring slide her mind against his in concern but Timur has stopped talking and laughing and is looking back, with all his attention pinned on him. 

He stares at Timur's eyes then looks down to his lips and then further down to his throat. The image of Timur dead and torn open never quite left him. 

His fingers trail down from Timur's face, trace the jugular vein, feel the beat of his heart under the gentle pressure and wonders how easy it would be to just push until he breaks the skin and curls his finger around the delicate vein. 

He can feel the quickening of Timur's heartbeat as he cages the larynx between his fingers, barely having to push to get Timur to start tensing. He lets up almost immediately, instead runs his palm around until he cradles Timur's neck.

The other man opens his mouth, licks his lips. Felwinter looks him in the eye and waits, imagines he can count the vertebrae in Timur's neck and back without flaying him alive. 

"...Sometimes I want to know what's running through your mind."

Timur's voice comes out a whisper, hand curling around his wrist, but doesn't pull it away from his neck. 

"And I know you'll never tell me, but I still want to ask."

He's leaning in until Felwinter can feel his hot breath against his mouth. His eyes are searching Felwinter and he's not sure what for. 

"Should I ask?" 

The earnestness is a punch to the gut. He hates that he can't trust it. But he still fears, still wants more of the warmth. 

"No."

He closes the distance between them.

\---

**_"There's always that kernel of doubt."_ **

\---

They find an abandoned Warmind Bunker, the power is dead, the defences gone, stripped and scavenged down to bolts and nuts. 

Felwinter tries and fails to access the outer terminal, too many repairs needed, while Timur tries to find a way to crack open the doors to the inner sanctuary. He doesn't feel very optimistic about this. 

He's looking away when Timur attempts to bring the system back with a zap of Arc. The sound tingles like the hands that had been exploring his every plate and seam and joint the previous night and he can feel his last train of thought crash and burn.

Timur groans in disappointment when nothing flickers to life and shuffles over to Felwinter. He quickly unclenches his fists and stands from his hunch over the console before Timur can see he was starting to bend the panel with his bare hands. 

"Dead end it looks like. It will take years to get any part of this place to operate again. Doesn't seem to have been very important though." 

Felwinter can hear the sulk before he even turns around, knows he'll have to deal with Timur moping on the entire way back to the Peak. But, he is right. 

"No. The security seems rudimentary and the power generators are low quality. We likely won't find anything useful even if we go deeper in."

He shakes his head and crosses his arms, just another deadend indeed he thinks, mood souring if only a bit. He's more used to not finding the next thread to follow in his chase. He can see Timur watching from the side, shifting his arms around awkwardly. 

It's a feat that he doesn't jump when Timur's hand taps at his lower back. Then wraps loosely around him when he doesn't flinch away. 

"I guess we can scratch this place from the list." Timur mumbles, presses against Felwinter’s side and…stays there. 

Felwinter hasn't ever felt more confused, what is Timur even expecting here? The gesture isn't a proposition, it's not even exploring like it was last night. It's just _there_. 

But it ends before Felwinter can figure out what to do about it. Timur steps away to take another look around. "Do we camp or do we begin the return trip? There's still light left in the day, but not much."

The question lodges in his mind. His traitorous mind that returns to last night, warmth and searching hands and the barest hints of lightning crackling between Timur’s fingers. His hands clench at the phantom sensation of soft skin, pliant and sun-kissed and _bloodied and torn and he can pick the tendons from the muscles and the arteries and wonders wonders wonders_ -

“No, we’ve been away for too long. Radegast has already given us a deadline.” 

Timur sighs but nods, “And he is getting more and more _unreasonable_ these days. You’re right.”

Felwinter nods and starts climbing out. He tries not to imagine how the night would have carried on if they stayed. Instead he latches on to the relief of returning to trodden, even ground and almost out of whatever new expectations Timur might have.

\---

**_“Our questions shape the reality that answers them."_ **

\---

In the end, Timur doesn’t...expect anything of him. Not that night, when they inevitably don’t reach the mountain soon enough to risk travelling through Fallen territory at night, and not when they return to the others and their easy camaraderie. 

Timur winks as he walks away and Felwinter watches the other Warlock with narrowed eyes and tense shoulders while Felspring snickers but pleads caution. As if he could do anything _else_ , when the trickle of panic bursts from his chest like a waterfall each time Timur says anything out of his usual spiels and he nearly slips back into old habits of killing before he can let something come back later to bite him.

His hands always shake when he gets the chance to think back on every time he’s leveled a gun on the back of an unaware Timur’s skull, his mind shutting off with the image of the Crypt and bodies and bodies and _bodies piled around his feet high enough that he can drown in-_

The tools spark angrily in his hands and Felwinter scowls and tosses them aside to inspect the ugly welding. He stares at the ragged line, blotchy and precisely not what he wanted but it’s all he will get.

He sags in his chair, running a hand over his smooth skull. 

What is he thinking? Why does he feel like he wants to rip out his own guts every time death whispers in his ears that maybe it’s time he said goodbye to Timur. Started hedging his bets.

Felspring sparks out of her subspace, inspecting his soddy work with an unimpressed air.

“An electrician you might have become, but you’re still shit at it Felwinter.”

He glares at her. She looks back levely. They hold the stare for a long time.

“You know I’m not talking about your technical skills right now, don’t you?”

He scowls.

Of course she wasn’t. She lives in his head and he has nearly as much experience with her to read her mind just as easily.

“Just go to him. Even if it’s a ruse it’s...it’s too far-fetched alright? We both know that.”

He stops listening right there, starts cleaning up his workspace.

“Felwinter?”

He stops listening right there, because if he doesn’t he will be marching over to Timur’s chambers and if by some miracle his mind _does_ let him rest, Timur certainly won’t.

He can’t afford to get soft anymore.

\---

**_“Then let me do my part for the cause.”_ **

\---

He leaves with Efrideet and Saladin the next morning and blessedly does not have to see Timur. He feels the embarrassment would be too mortifying to endure without sounding like a bumbling idiot or his chest feeling like it's trying to melt from anxiety and dread. 

Felspring sulks during the entire trekk to Shaxx's mountain and he doesn't pay her any attention, he can't think about it, he just can't afford it. 

“But,” Felspring had said sadly before she had let him be. “Isn’t it what you’d want?” He’d have prefered not having that thought rattling in his head among everything else, but they both know. It can’t be what he can have.

So when Shaxx takes his head off, it’s a blow to his pride, but also a chance to clear his head. And if he gets to help the weaker ones, the ghostless ones, and also be contrary to Radegast, well…

He never presumed to be above pettiness. 

So he stays. And he challenges Shaxx again, and again, and again. When he keeps losing, he gains more than a little grudging respect for the man. 

Shaxx does no such thing.

And when Felwinter makes the man stop to think about his barreling path on which he clings to every lightless person under his roof with the single-minded thought that he can protect them better than the Iron Lords, protect them from everything and anything that crosses his path, he scrapes back some of his pride. Some of his love of _words_.

So Felwinter lingers and he lights his fires and he dives into the unraveling that is coercing Shaxx to the Iron Lords' cause and rips his mind from Timur with as much vindictive pleasure as he can wring from himself. 

\---

**_“I leave my people to no one. But if you’re seeking shelter, you’re free to stay.”_ **

**_“You call them ‘your people.’ You rule them? Like a king?”_ **

**_“I protect them.”_ **

\---

It’s a day cold and dark and howling, but Felwinter’s Well of Radiance does not falter. He keeps hold of the wispy sword and lets the fire warm him even as his Light drains out of him.

Felspring is flitting around him, trying to spark a bit of conversation during their endless vigil while waiting for the storm to pass. None of the civilians will approach Felwinter, and when they do it’s to either pass on a message from Shaxx or offer some food and then scurry back as fast as they can.

He isn’t bothered by it, but it does get old very soon. What actually bothers him is the fact that he _misses conversation._ That he misses Timur's incessant rambling. About theories, about locations to explore, about exos and their failing memory. 

Felwinter starts wishing the storm would let up just so he could march up to Shaxx and challenge him again. Then, at least, they converse. It’s more of a battle than actual conversation, as all things tend to be with Shaxx, but it sates a need in him he hasn’t indulged in since...too long ago.

He looks out to the falling snow and straightens his spine. No use wishing for useless things.

Felspring huddles in the crook of his elbow and he can feel her gearing up to breach a subject and he has little patience to entertain her thoughts of him and Timur. She never settles anywhere on him unless she wants to talk about something or she needs to reassure herself of his presence, rare a time as that may be.

He starts to dread the moment she opens her metaphorical mouth.

Instead, the heavy trod of armored boots catches his attention. The edge of his helmet catches on his robes’ collar as he looks over his shoulder at Shaxx. He stops just outside the circle of Felwinter’s Well.

The Warlord says nothing, so Felwinter looks back outside to the storm. He already has an eye on him anyway. Felspring looks between them and flicks away.

Time stretched on, dark falling faster with the sun hidden behind angry clouds and fluttering snow. Felwinter almost didn’t mind. 

“You are far more persistent than I believed you to be.”

He feels the moment Shaxx steps inside his circle, his Light enveloping the Warlord as he steps up next to him, seeping into any old wound and tired joint. He particularly feels the tension coiled in the man.

The same kind of tension starts building between Felwinter’s shoulders, unwanted and unwarranted. It’s not often that Shaxx seeks him out for any reason. Their Ghosts have seen more of each other than the Risen have, passing messages for challenges and setting up watch rotas to keep the cold and snow out.

“What did you expect?” 

Shaxx’s helmet tilts in his direction.

“Careless warmongers. Itching to take and take and not stop to give more than a passing thought for the destruction they bring.”

Felwinter tilts his helmet in Shaxx’s direction.

“Maybe a few among us are.”

Shaxx turns to him fully, crosses his arms across his broad chest and waits. Felwinter twists his grip on the sword, wrenching it out of the floor and letting most of the fire fade. He drives it back down with renewed purpose, the circle of soothing fire reaching further out than before.

The light makes shadows stretch oddly over Shaxx, but they make him no less stern and unmovable than before. Felwinter stares for longer than strictly necessary.

“Not everyone joined because they believed in the change we can bring. Some are just Warlords that bent their knee. They have little conviction and lesser loyalty. If they could, they would return to what has been the norm until now.”

The Warlord’s head tips down to look at Felwinter fully. The tension from both now bleeding out to the space between them. The fire roars.

“And you would have me believe you are not like one of them? Or that your ideals will be held up?”

He keeps his silence as Shaxx scrutinises him. 

“Why should I put my people in danger by believing you.”

Felwinter wants to look away, but he knows, challenges or not, that would be a terrible idea.

“We have nothing to hide. We want to help. All you have to do is let us.”

Shaxx snorts and steps forward, the fire from the sword brushing against his chestplate.

“You are not a cohesive force. The Iron lords will falter and fall. And then where will all these people be?”

Felwinter blinks slowly. That is…

It is not precisely something he himself had spared much thought about. It was always Timur, always Saladin or Radegast or Efrideet talking grand plans for the future. Skorri with her songs that inspired the rest to push for a better future for humanity. Gheleon always picking the worst case scenario to prepare for that pushed the others to do better.

Felwinter was… Felwinter provided the means. And that was all he’d ever thought of giving. All that he’d been able to give.

He’d always been prepared to take off and never return and they don’t expect more of him than what he already gives. _(It’s already too much, so much.)_

Shaxx snorts and starts walking away. He’d spent too long thinking. His mouth opens, clamps shut. Timur jumps to mind, always with a cocky mouth and easy quip to whatever Felwinter was arguing against.

“With you.”

The Warlord stops, turns to look at him, boot toeing the line of his Well. He awaits an explanation.

“You would let a scattered force to safeguard your people?”

“No.”

Felwinter’s shoulders relax, incrementally.

“Then, you would not leave the rest of humanity to the same scattered forces.”

A guffaw and then Shaxx is laughing in his face. Felwinter’s mouth curls, as much as it can.

“Presumptuous of you.”

Felwinter snorts. “Am I wrong.”

Shaxx hums and steps back to his side. “No.”

They stay at the south gate even when Felwinter’s Light drains down to the last mote. Then Shaxx sparks a new fire with his Hammer and they keep their vigil long into the night, until the snow stops falling.

It seems there is something in Felwinter that Shaxx found worthy of some respect.

His persistence.

Felspring wastes no time in noting that to him. He swats her away irritably.

\---

**_“I’m no king.”_ **

**_“Prove it.”_ **

**_“I have nothing to prove to you.”_ **

**_“Prove it to them.”_ **

\---

The next morning he challenges Shaxx again. There’s a moment of satisfaction when a backhand that should have torn through his throat only knocked his helmet off.

He twists and kicks out but Shaxx is powering through the blow and already going for his head again. Felwinter sees the fist coming and he knows he can’t react fast enough.

So he lunges with his fist, Void Light clenched tight into the Warlord’s stomach before his head is pounded to the ground.

A moment passes. Felspring reaches into the abyss and drops him to his feet in front of Shaxx.

Shaxx’s Ghost is healing the Warlord’s gaping side, eaten down to the bone from the Void and bleeding rivers and Felwinter’s eyes fixate on it.

His mind instantly returns to a night camping away, weather colder than the freezing air of Shaxx’s mountain, hands catching at every seam of his body and sparking with Arc until he _arched_ , all the time his mind had been jumping to the feeling of the blood pumping under his palms, the bones curving protectively over heart and lungs and-

He could feel Shaxx's gaze locked on him as he leaves. He only grabs his helmet and goes inside to a room Shaxx had said he could use without another word. 

Felspring looks at him from the door as he paces, hands clenched at his sides, boots stomping on the floor. He tosses his helmet on the cot in the corner and then sits down as well, hand covering his face.

She floats until she’s level with his face. 

“Well, I don’t get to see you like this very often.”

He throws her a withering glare.

“I can, just, you know. Leave for a bit, scour the halls for a while?”  
  
He glares harder at her.

“Alright, I’ll be back later.”

She flickers away before he can swipe her out of the air.

Felwinter growls at himself and tears his robes off, then his gloves and his boots and climbs up on the cot and simply sits. Lets the cold seep through his undersuit and down to his bare feet, ground himself in the now. 

He has little reason to indulge in this...whatever it is, and has never found reason to indulge before for anything else. He doesn’t see the reason now.

He closes his eyes and instead tries to meditate. He lets his thoughts fade away until only he and the Light exist, the barest of threads connecting him to Felspring and her to the Traveler and from there, the cosmos.

Vast and nebulous and unending. He could travel along its waves until he's been broken down to nothing. 

Slowly, bit by bit, he starts to relax, consciousness slipping away from his physical body. The trajectory of celestial bodies passing by his mind, some massive and some unnoticed by all.

He could pluck a thread of them and follow the knowledge they can give until the moment of their birth. He can get lost in them, in their history and their gravity. 

And he does. He sheds the heat nestling in his gut. The murmur of paranoia tapering off to silence in his mind. He swims, floating along the cosmic waves, plucking away at any little mystery the Light presents him with. He twists them in his hands, pulling them into his being, assimilating them and then pulling the essence of their meaning out like a little galaxy of its own to float away.

It's dark when he opens his eyes again. 

And he's not alone. 

He fights the jolt of alarm, self still settling back into his mechanical frame, eyes pinned on Shaxx sitting at the small table across him. He's fiddling with one of Felwinter's books, carefully turning the pages, peering at the words he's scrawled on the margins. 

Felwinter's eyes drop down to the man's side. Whole and hale, not a speck of blood or the tiniest of scratches to speak of. He resolutely pushes away the flare of disappointment. 

"You are a curious one."

His gazes snaps up to Shaxx's helmet. He can't see his eyes, but by the angle of the helmet he knows the man isn't looking at him, still leafing through the book. 

"You say you are an Iron Lord, yet you crave to inflict pain as if it's a joy."

"No." The word jumps out of his mouth without any volition of his own.

Shaxx turns fully towards him. 

"Do not lie to me."

Felwinter has no intention of lying to Shaxx, but the accusation makes his hackles rise, his voice come out strained. 

"I have no reason to lie. I do not _enjoy_ such a thing."

Shaxx snorts, obviously disbelieving. "I do have eyes, Felwinter. I know what I saw."

The Iron Lord shifts up to his feet, joints creak and complaining from the cold, he can feel the slight frost thaw after spending an entire day unmoving in a freezing room. Shaxx keeps facing him and he can’t help the feeling that he’s being weighed in an entirely different way than usual.

"Do not tell me that we cannot dislike something we enjoy.”

He grinds his jaw together, put upon and very much not in the mood to entertain Shaxx’s frivolities.

“And whatever _preferences_ I seem to have, they concern you for what reason exactly?”

The horns tilt to the side and he gets the impression Shaxx is amused.

“Why do you think I’m asking?”

Felwinter’s eyes narrow. “You worry for your people.”

He’s taken aback when the man simply starts laughing. This time he is more bothered than amused.

“You are indeed a curious one. Though I believe you really are toying with me, Felwinter.”

Shaxx raises his arms and Felwinter expects an attack, tensing and bare feet dragging on the stone floor. But Shaxx only takes off his gauntlets, rolling up his undersuit and presenting his muscled, scarred arms to him.

He blinks, not understanding one bit.

Shaxx motions to them with his head. “Go on, let me see what you want to do.”

Suddenly Felwinter feels his mind crash to a halt. And again he remembers, hot hands, soft flesh, a throat crushed open, spine torn away and curling uselessly to the side-

“No.”

The Warlord chuckles. “I am asking nicely.”

“Why.” It’s more of a statement than a question, his voice sounding hollow even to his own head. He can trace the veins, the jutting bone of the wrists, the curl of muscle on the forearm, what if he could slip a finger under the muscle and just-

“Call it curiosity.”

It seems to slap some sense back in Felwinter’s head. Curiosity for _what_ ? _Curiosity_ is not something he _needs._

“No.” He sounds more like himself this time.

Shaxx hums and lets his arms drop. Instead he steps slowly into Felwinter’s space, until Felwinter has to crane his head to look at Shaxx’s face. Slowly, carefully, he calls Void to curl inside his fists.

“Good. At least you can stick to your convictions.”

Felwinter scoffs. “Is that what you wanted to know?”

“Not only.”

“What _else_ can I help you with?” If his words bite more than he intended to, Felwinter doesn’t regret it.

“That depends.” 

Felwinter’s eyes are pinned on the hand getting raised. It’s done at a crawl, as if he is an animal easily spooked and ready to lunge. He can’t say he doesn’t feel like it. He tugs at his connection to Felspring, tells her to _keep away_ with all the urgency he can push into the intention.

Fingers trail his collar. They leave heat in their wake and a promise he's too high strung to acknowledge and Felwinter is an unmoving statue. The Void condenses in his fists, anxious and hungry. 

Shaxx's hand curls loosely around his throat, thumb touching along where his jugular would have been, like a question. 

It's gentle. 

Felwinter chokes up. The Void rushes away in a tiny blasts of singularities in his palms and he hears Shaxx chuckle. 

"Tell me Felwinter, should I keep going?" 

His mouth opens, words pile up in his throat but they get stuck before they become sound. 

Shaxx settles his hand on the junction of shoulder and neck, it chases away the chill with a wisp of Light and Felwinter almost leans in. He wonders what it would mean if he did. 

"...That depends." 

There's a feather light touch at his waist and his hand wraps around Shaxx's wrist before he can set it on the curve of his hip. The Warlord's voice comes out low. 

"On?"

His eyes blaze as he tries to make some sense of this advance. "Why the curiosity?"

Shaxx stills, seems to be looking squarely back at him. "It's simple. I want to know more. I want to know how far you are willing to go to keep your…urges, let's call them, under wraps."

His grip on Shaxx's wrist tightens. 

"I am not your science project." He nearly spits it out. 

"Humour me."

"If you wish to test my patience, you are succeeding." Anger simmers below his scathing tone. He has not survived until now to be _mocked_ . He has not run and killed and deceived, to become a _plaything._

He did not stand for it when Timur toyed with him until he grabbed him by the face. He will not stand for Shaxx to start prodding until he snaps. He is not a 'curiosity'.

The wrist started to strain between his fingers as he peeled it away from his side, Shaxx grunted. Felwinter thinks he sounds breathless for the entirely wrong reasons when he speaks. 

"Ha, already caving in?" 

Felwinter glares up at him and twists. He gets rewarded with a sickening crack and a muffled gasp. He leans up to whisper. 

"You did not come here expecting restraint. Why should I give it?"

The hand on his shoulder feels like a vice but it doesn't push him away. It just holds him, but he has no intention of walking out of this without having proven a point. 

He pushes his other hand against Shaxx's chestplate, insistent. "Take this off."

The Warlord breathes deeply, once, twice and his Ghost simmers into existence. The armor gets transmated away under Felwinter’s hand, the top part of the undersuit following.

His fingers instantly travel to the spot from before, low, just below the ribs. The flesh feels tender and pliant and Shaxx keeps tensing and relaxing again and again under his touch. He presses his palm in and waits.

At some point Shaxx gets impatient. “What are you waiting for?”

Felwinter blinks, remembers the river of blood running down the man’s side, coating him in vibrant red. Red and torn and ragged from the Void that had eaten the meat down to the bone, stark white before red started dripping on it as well.

He pulls his hands away. Shaxx grunts and holds his broken wrist.

“I am not a toy.”

Shaxx laughed. A short, mean laugh and Felwinter felt no remorse for breaking the man’s hand.

“I suppose not. You have my apologies.” Shaxx’s Ghost heals the wrist with a beam of Light and then disappears again. Shaxx tests it and lets it drop to his hip.

Felwinter crosses his arms to hide the slight tremors. “If there is nothing else?”

Shaxx hums, seemingly unbothered by the entire exchange. “Just the one thing.”

Plasteel and metal ground awfully together as Felwinter’s mouth did it’s best impression of scowling it could. 

“Why _do_ you think I’m asking?”

Felwinter blinks, mouth parting in confusion. “Why…?”

Shaxx nods.

Felwinter suddenly wishes he had Felspring’s snarky comments in the back of his head to keep him grounded. The Warlord waits patiently while he futilely tries to gather his thoughts.

Oh, bugger.

Shaxx leans down, voice soft but firm. “There’s not much to think over, Felwinter. If you do not care for any bit of this, you need only say the word.”

Did he? He’d already spent more than enough time stressing over Timur and _that_ little development. Half the reason he’d decided to stay was to take his mind off of it. And now he’s stuck in the middle of the same. _Again._

So why was he thinking this over?

“...Let me think about it.”

Shaxx nods slowly and makes a satisfied sound. His armor returns to him in a flash and he’s already leaving the room when he speaks up.

“You know where to find me, if you change your mind.”

The door closing behind him sounds like a coffin closing over him. Curiosity will be the death of him.

\---

**_“Everything they might become dies with them.”_ **

\---

There’s a muffled keen as Felwinter twists Shaxx’s arm behind his back and _pulls_. The arm is wrenched out of its socket, left to drop down to the Warlord’s bed uselessly.

Blood is dotted all over the sheets from when Felwinter had turned Shaxx’s prone body around, letting the precise cuts running over the ribs, from chest to belly, bleed and turn inflamed when he runs his fingers over them, pressing down harshly and digging just under the skin until he hears Shaxx work to muffle himself.

He’s broken Shaxx’s left arm in three places and dislocated the right one and still the Warlord has not uttered any complaints, his cock still hard and leaking on the sheets. Now he’s looking at the expanse of the man’s back with a gnawing hunger in his chest and he thinks he might end up killing him if only to feel full and content for once.

Felwinter picks the bloody blade from the side, tapping it against Shaxx’s neck once before he climbs over the man’s waist and leans down. He listens to Shaxx’s laboured breathing, tapping fingers down the spine and around the shoulderblades. Then he dips the blade at the base of the neck, over the bone.

Shaxx makes a choked sound, but does not move as Felwinter drags the knife until it meets bone and meticulously flays the flesh off the bone. He strips it away until Felwinter can see the vertebrae clearly, until he taps a bloody finger against the bloody bone and he can hear the scream Shaxx cuts off from filtering through the helmet.

Felwinter shivers, a deep kind of satisfaction making his teeth chatter and his hands become unsteady. So he sets the knife down and plunges a finger inside the hole, pressing against the bone until he can feel the connection to the next vertebrae.

Shaxx is wracked by trembles below him. His body jerking involuntarily between his thighs, sweaty and flushed and covered in his own blood. Felwinter can’t remember a time where he felt more in control than now. Not once. How else could he have? How could he _not_ feel like this now?

With Shaxx letting the proposition hang so freely and temptingly that he could no more refuse it than rip the Light from his frame. When the Warlord promised compliance and the reassurance that if Felwinter _did_ go too far, he’d make him stop.

When his mind finally stopped screaming fear and death and _cuffs around his arms and choking around his neck_ because he could just...have this.

It’s exhilarating. And he will not have it ever again.

He pulls his finger away from Shaxx’s neck, paints in blood on the man’s back. Dots and lines like constellations he knows, far away from the solar system. Ones he could navigate to, if he could. Beneath him, Shaxx is still shivering, body still twitching at times.

His laboured breathing when he opens the sound in his helmet again is like music to Felwinter’s ears.

“F...ha…en…”

He needs a moment to gather his wits, vent some heat out of his system, before Felwinter climbs off Shaxx and leans down to speak quietly. He keeps his hands to himself.

“Should I stop?”

Shaxx shudders once and nods. 

Felwinter spares a moment to savour the sight of his handiwork, brand it in his mind as _his_ and not some nightmare or an unstoppable directive, and he stopped precisely when he, _they_ , wanted. He draws a steadying breath and opens a healing rift.

He watches intently as the wounds close, he helps set the arms in place, let the bones heal properly and pushing until the shoulder pops back into place. Shaxx barely grunts as he shifts to sit back on his knees, letting the knife carvings on his chest breathe as they slowly mended as well.  
  
If Felwinter had been made any more human, his heart may have skipped a beat at the sight.

His fingers are gentle as he traces the faint scars they leave behind, paper thin and soon to be gone soon under his rift’s Light. 

A hand closes around his and he looks at Shaxx and waits. Instead Shaxx holds his knuckles up to tap them against the helm and Felwinter snorts.

“There’s no need for that kind of formality.”

He gets pulled closer until he has to crawl on his knees on the bed, his bare chest pressed against Shaxx’s bloodied torso, flagging erection trapped between them.

“And what if I enjoy such a formality, hm?”

Light travels along with Shaxx’s palms as they settle around his shoulders and waist, it warms him until he sags and merely scowls when Shaxx tips them to the side and they fall to lay down.

Felwinter squirms to settle when the arms simply don’t let go and stops. “You would stay wanting?”

A hum rambles against his chest from Shaxx, low and deep. “I am wanting of nothing. Unless you wish to leave for the guest room?”

The exo thinks it over only for a moment before humming and settling back down. Shaxx chuckles and pulls the ruined covers over them.

Iron Lords and Warlords will be here come morning, he’d rather not face them with blood still on his hands and mind reeling back from a high.

\---

**_"You've fought this fight a long time. We can plot a course around the Warsat network. We'd never have to touch a single planet with a Warmind presence. Any of them."_ **

\---

“What business do you have?"

"I search for knowledge. For meaning."

"Knowledge comes in all forms, you can acquire it in any place. What do you _seek_?"

"Understanding our purpose."

"And if you so acquire your knowledge and your understanding. What will you do with them."

"Strive for a safer future."

"Grand ambition."

"Merely the minimum."

"Hm. You should learn to place limits to your ideas."

"Once you limit yourself, you have already begun to fail. I do not strive for failure."

"What is your name?" 

"Osiris."

"Well met. I am Felwinter. Come, we have much to discuss." 

\---

**_"For the day we're free."_ **

\---

Osiris is not an easy student, for no other reason than because he refuses to be anything but an equal. He studies, devours the knowledge and the books and all the research Felwinter has done. He spins it in his mind until he comes to Felwinter full of questions and an urgency not contained within his frame.

They stay up late into the nights, and they are long this far north. They study by candlelight and then by the braziers to keep warm. 

They keep talking and shooting down theories and events and facts all day long. Most days Timur slides up next to them and he showcases the glaring holes in both of their theorycrafting, that they came up with painstakingly in the late hours of the night, with gleeful eyes.

Osiris’ face becomes pinched every time and Felwinter’s eyes narrow and Timur dances away with a wink and some backhanded advice, but not before he slips teasing fingers at Felwinter’s ribs and waist. 

He usually sends Osiris away to rest before he finds Timur around the corner, ready to whisk him away on some fool’s errand or to bed. And like a fool, Felwinter goes. Even with the phantom memory of blood on his hands and his mind always pointed like a compass to every nightmare his mind has conjured.

Timur looks on with knowing, sad eyes every time Felwinter traces with soft touches the places where he would cut Timur to pieces, break apart bone and spill blood and marrow.

Felwinter suspects Timur would let him do worse things to him than Shaxx, if he asked. But Timur holds his silence and simply pulls Felwinter in to press a kiss on the corner of Felwinter’s closed mouth. Felwinter refuses to have something like that again, no matter how much he craves for it.

When they part every next morning, Timur always with lingering touches and Felwinter high strung and relaxed all at once, he usually finds Osiris with Nirwen, hunched over some obscure text form the Golden Age Nirwen had found in one of xir raids in the remains of Fallen-infested ruined cities.

Osiris is always more insufferably inquisitive and restless after spending time with Nirwen. He glares at Nirwen until xir makes xirself scarce with a smirk before he turns his attention to his wayward student waxing on by himself about something or other. It takes hours to get him back on track.

Sometimes his mind wanders to the fact that he can afford to spend hours and days dedicated to educating another and something lightens in him, if only barely. Felspring teases him about going soft in his old age. He swats her away and brings Osiris out on the training field, long empty and long unused with the Iron Lords wandering and exploring and running operations out of bounds and some even spending time at the small city blooming under the Traveler’s shadow.

Slowly he realises that the world has turned over to a new age somewhere between Felwinter being a fugitive and becoming an Iron Lord and a ‘Guardian’, as they are being called nowadays.

Guardian has a nice ring to it.

It seems more fitting for a world where humanity is finally finding its way. Where survival can give way to living again. He is glad to see it happen.

So when Felspring tells him about a Rasputin Bunker she has managed to hack remotely, he is conflicted about exploring it.

He goes of course. He talks to Osiris about the new city, urges him to go. He will undoubtedly learn more by living with other Guardians rather than spending his every hour holed up with an old Warlord and a confusing Iron Wolf and Timur being an irritating foil to both Felwinter and Nirwen.

He’s almost prideful when the young Warlock bows to them as he leaves the mountain. Then Timur breaks the moment by elbowing him in the ribs and Felwinter drags _him_ to the training fields. And if they both enjoy the bruises and cracked bones Felwinter leaves him with that Timur keeps for their coupling later, neither says anything.

He leaves alone, early enough to still be called night, with Felspring leading him. It’s easy enough to find when he knows where to look. The ship they find inside gives him pause.

It’s magnificent, operational, powerful.

It’s a way _out._

Out of the system, out of Rasputin’s watchful eye, out of running, out of _hiding._

It would also mean leaving everything behind.

Felwinter leaves the ship behind with Felspring trailing silently behind him, almost accusingly, almost exhausted enough that he wants to reconsider it.

Then he remembers Osiris bowing them all as he leaves, Timur smirking at him from his side and Nirwen manning all the communications between the scattered Iron Lords and the people he knows and the people he doesn't know building a future under the Traveler and he doesn’t regret it.

Until Timur comes to him a couple of days after he returns to the peak, face alight with discovery, and he does.

\---

**_“We all have creators. Some are just easier to find.”_ **

\---

SIVA crawls under his skin, it makes his stomach turn even as resignation settles over him like the inevitability of death. He holds Felspring’s shell in his hands even as he feels the last dregs of his consciousness slip away from him.

The loud gunfight and hiss of SIVA rattles him and he wants to do nothing but weep. She had given him an out. She had given _both_ of them an out, and he’d squandered it.

His sight blurs with static and there’s a whirr somewhere deep inside him that’s becoming louder, but he watches as Gheleon, or what remains of Gheleon, beats mindlessly against Perun, her deflections becoming less and less coordinated with each hit.

He can see SIVA scrawling under her armor and he wants to scream. He doesn’t want to see this. He doesn’t want to live through this. 

He can feel a hysterical laugh bubble up. All this time…  
  
All this time he spent running and hiding and looking over his back, only to die to something like _this._ Out of _Rasputin’s_ power, to something related but not...not like anything he could have imagined.

Dying. Dying and then killing his own friends.

Friends.

Felspring had been right. He had changed.

Jolder seals the door and Felwinter closes his eyes.

\---

**_"I just like the name. Doesn't mean anything."_ **

**Author's Note:**

> referenced lore tabs include -  
> Felwinter's Helm  
> Obsidian Wings  
> Winter's Guile  
> Loose Ends, III  
> Garden Progeny 1  
> Foundations I  
> Felwinter Peak  
> Lord Timur  
> Lord Felwinter  
> Remembrance  
> Victory Banners  
> Iron Symmachy Robes  
> Memory of Timur  
> Felwinter's Lie


End file.
